Content Management Matters ™

Bob Bickel of Ringside Networks is always sending interesting stuff to my trusty Thunderbird.
His latest exposition is a timely call to arms regarding the Social Web, and is worth five minutes of any Webmaster's time. In essence, Bob's argument is that some version of open social (all rights reserved, Google Corp.) is happening, and that all you Webmasters are going to be dancing in the streets when you see what this thing will do. If, that is, you wake up in time and get to grips with what it means. And part of that, according to Bob, will mean that you're going to have to get savvy with Social Application Servers like Ringside's.

Web 2.0 brought about the evolution of the social web. But there have always been challenges working socially on the web, especially with social marketing or social networking. The challenge is that it can be difficult to stay active socially, even just in your niche. Google is trying to change that.

Organizations today understand that a key focus of their marketing activities must be in the social media arena. If they are really smart, they also recognize that user participation is key to successful social media marketing. And what do users like to contribute? Text, video, audio and all the rating, tagging and commenting that goes along with it.

Who better to help these organizations support their social media marketing activities than SaaS User Participation Platform provider Reality Digital? This is a company that not only has the technical experience to create a social media platform with a strong Digital Asset Management backbone, but also has the marketing savvy to understand the key to social media marketing is a combination of user generated and professionally published content.

The more web 2.0 progresses and the more the term web 3.0 shows up the more it seems like social networking is becoming a must for anyone involved in social media at all. Every week and nearly every day the big guns in the social world are releasing new and innovative ways to connect the web, and therefore the world. Facebook is no exception to this rule.

Matchbin is touted as the world’s first ecommerce platform as a service that specializes in both product and service matching. They've created something called the Community Marketplace Multimedia Edition. This technical wonder bundle is a fully fledged social media system, web content management system and ecommerce marketplace rolled-up in one.

Following in the great web 2.0 tradition of having a cute name and throwing some awesome launch parties, New York based Drop.Io has started to make a splash on the scene after receiving their second round of funding in March and opening themselves up to the public. The question remains however, what exactly is the site and why should we sign up for yet another 2.0 service?

CMSWire spends a fair amount of time bringing you news and information about products or services that help you integrate SharePoint data into your other systems. It's pretty rare to find a vendor who doesn't want to integrate with Microsoft's flagship CMS system.

If there was ever to be one though, it should come as no surprise that IBM is that vendor. The newest release of their Collaboration software, Quickr, comes with a content integrator tool designed to help organizations move away from the dreaded viral software that SharePoint is fast becoming to the software company that use to claim that "viral" title.

Have we learned all we need to know about Web 2.0 and how it impacts our organizations? O'Reilly thinks not and so has decided to enlighten us with a new book on the subject: Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide -- Business Thinking and Strategies Behind Successful Web 2.0 Implementations

The open social party is apparently the place to be. Even old Microsoft just announced LiveMesh). Now Yahoo, who's Flickr photo sharing site is the second most popular used API on the web, has rolled out a limited preview to the developer platform they announced in February called SearchMonkey.

Too often we associate content management systems with boring, mundane industries. But even the exciting, impulsive side of things needs a CMS. Such is the glamorous life for Modera.

The multinational-based CMS specialists are gearing up to reveal their new line of products at this week's Internet World 2008. Included in the unveiling is the new Web 2.0 e-commerce fan site for the popular British band, Jamiroquai, which was produced in conjunction with Modera's partner, and the band's digital marketing agency, Million Media.

Zoho, well-known creator of a comprehensive suite of affordable, online collaborative productivity applications recently announced that its popular suite is the proud recipient of the 2008 Webware 100 award for productivity. The award was given out by Webware, a CNET site.

Blogging has been around for some time now, but there is a new aspect of blogging that is on the rise across the web. That aspect is microblogging. Much like the advent of text messaging, microblogging is taking the idea of being connected to the next level and sweeping the world over.

Not only does Dries Buytaert get selected as one the top young tech entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek, but one of his newest ventures -- Acquia, has been chosen to launch their company at the Launch Pad - Venture Capital Edition during the web2.0 expo today in San Francisco.

Spend a little bit of time listening to what your customers actually need and you might get some really good, saleable ideas for new features and services offerings for your product. At least that's what Socialtext did, announcing the newest version of their business social software along with four new service solutions.

There are innumerable ways to add content to a website. One way is the use of widgets. What is a widget? How do you use them? Where can you use them? These are questions that led to endless hours researching on the internet.